


Petals

by DollyPop



Category: Soul Eater
Genre: Canon Het Relationship, Canon Related, F/M, Flowers, Pre-Canon, Teen Years, Teenagers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-13
Packaged: 2018-06-02 00:00:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,042
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6542158
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DollyPop/pseuds/DollyPop
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"He loves me. . .he loves me not. . .he loves me."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Petals

“He loves me…he loves me not…he loves me…he loves me not…” Marie singsonged, uncaring of how dirty her dress was getting as she laid on her stomach in the grass. There were muddy stains on her elbows, and her usually immaculate Mary Janes had been scuffed when she went searching for flowers.

Nevada was a far cry from home, from Sweden: Death City was even more so. Most of the place was barren on the outskirts, and the world always shifted beneath her feet since there was no solidity to the sand. But here, close to the DWMA, in the training forest, wildflowers bloomed like it was their job.

And, speaking of jobs, she was supposed to find her Meister, though it defeated the purpose of him walking her home since she would always get lost on the way. Class had ended early, not that he would know since he always skipped, so she decided to check the forest where he could usually be found, collecting specimens and doing things he deemed more important than paying attention to Soul Theory. 

Had she been doomed from the start? Perhaps; especially considering that she, as usual, had gotten lost. She didn’t have soul perception like he did, so she wondered why she thought it a good idea to try to find him, but she was already deep in the forest when she realized the chances of locating Stein was slim to none. He was silent as a tombstone most of the time, and if he didn’t want to be found, he wouldn’t be. 

So, she had decided to pick flowers instead. He would find her as he always found her and then they could go home. In the meantime, she had filled the time by picking enough flowers to fill every beaker they had in the lab, an effort to brighten the place up, and more so.

She had a surplus, so why not indulge herself?

And thus, there she was, picking petals off of flowers and grinning as she did so.

She hadn’t allowed herself to think of  _him_ , at first. She was too scared as to what the outcome would be. Either she got her hopes up over flowers or she felt herself wilt. No, it was better to think of other boys in the class, see if she could predict whether they had a crush on her or not. The flowers had already guessed that Joe liked her, which she had known from the card he’d slipped her a few months ago during Valentine’s day. And, really, it wasn’t that Joe wasn’t a sweet boy. He just wasn’t what she was looking for.

 

Who she was looking for.

She hadn’t stopped at him, of course. She kept going until she made her way through almost all of the class.

“He loves me…” she said, finally reaching the last petal, and, with a sigh of relief, plucked it off, “he loves me not! Hah! Probably because he’s crushing on Mira~” Marie grinned, thankful that Sid’s flower had come out in the negative.

Though, she was most thankful when Spirit’s turned into a “loves me not”, too. It would have been all too strange if he liked her.

She stared at the barren flower for a few moments before she chucked it to the side, rolling over and staring up at the sky. The clouds were obscuring the sun, slightly, making it so that her eyes weren’t hurt when she looked up.

Her palms were sure to smell of dirt and plant-life from how much she’d handled the flowers. Her collection had been cut almost in half. And, after a moment of reflection, she realized that she had actually gone through everyone. 

Well. Almost everyone. 

Everyone but…

Her cheeks warmed and she blamed it on the laughing sun in the sky. Everyone but who she wanted. Marie sighed, looking at her pile of flowers from her periphery. She chewed on her lip for a second, debating in her head.

…what could it hurt?

Slowly, she sat up, scooting backwards until she was leaning comfortably against a tree. Her eyes scanned over the collection she had gathered, trying to settle on the perfect flower. No ordinary bloom would do for  _this_.

She lived in a world of magic and gods, rituals had power, no matter how frivolous, and she needed it to be done right.

Almost immediately, her eyes settled on the brightest in the bunch. Of everything she’d collected, she had only found one sunflower. It was strange that it was out in the training forest anyway, and that made it so special, she hadn’t wanted to waste it. She had almost felt guilty for plucking it, for ripping it from the earth. She had intended to put it in her room, in the windowsill, but she knew it would die soon, either way.

If anything, when she glanced over it, it seemed to get brighter, the cheerful yellow petals curling slightly in the breeze as though to tell her to go ahead, and Marie couldn’t help but smile.

Yes, that was  _the one_.

Taking a deep breath, she reached out and grasped it by the strong stalk. She had been the most enamored with that particular bloom, so she supposed it was fitting. When she brought it to her nose, inhaling slightly, all she really caught was the earthy, green, natural scent. It smelled clean and real, not floral in the slightest, and she smiled wider at the fact.

It fit him, in that way.

Feeling strangely giddy, she fingered a petal for a moment between her index finger and thumb, feeling how plush it was. Then, with a fizzy feeling in her stomach, she tugged, opening her mouth and blurting out “He loves me.”

There were multiple petals, more than she could count just by sight alone, but she felt slightly nervous, anyway. It felt like the more she plucked, the more there were, and she kept her chant up. “He loves me not…he loves me…he loves me not-” on and on, almost as though she were in a trance.

Which, she supposes, is why she didn’t sense him come up behind her until his hands clapped her shoulders and he was starting to say “Why are you in the forest-” only to be cut off by her shriek.

She threw the flower in his face before she even knew what she was doing, and she heard him sputter indignantly as she did so. 

Marie gasped, whirling around and half-supporting herself against the tree as her wide eyes focused on Stein with bright yellow petals in his hair and on his nose and finding their way down his shirt.

“Stein! You scared me to death!” she said, clutching her chest where she could feel her heart beating hard enough to sound like a war drum.

He was still fighting with the petals when Marie looked to the side and saw the flower thrown and practically barren, feeling a sad pang inside of her.

“You were too immersed in whatever you were doing,” he snapped back at her, shaking his head and trying to get the remnants of plant off of him. Were she anyone else, she was sure he’d send her to the infirmary for throwing a bloom in his face.

But she was his partner, so all he did was sigh heavily, looking at her with irritation and annoyance stamped on his face. “Why were you picking the damn thing apart, anyway?” he asked, scowling. And she couldn’t help but feel somewhat irked that he would ask someone else’s reasons for tearing something to shreds.

“It was just a game!” she replied, folding her arms over her chest, looking away. “Death, sorry for trying to have  _fun_.”

She could practically feel him looking at her soul, and she huffed when she looked back at him, meeting his glance head on. What had originally been irritation had quickly turned into something more like being baffled, and she felt her heart melt at the confusion on his face.

So, sure, he had spooked her, likely on purpose. She did still throw the thing in his face. She guessed they were both to blame.

She wished she could actually stay mad at him.

Instead, she rolled her eyes, standing up and dusting her skirt off. “Sorry…I’m just a little upset that I’ll never know…” she said, and she looked over at the flower with sad eyes. With a sigh, she bent down to scoop up her flowers and her bag, getting everything in order. Yet, when she looked up at him, he had already started walking off and she almost felt the irritation bubble out of her once more before she realized that he had made his way to where the sunflower was, picking it up and examining it. When he looked at her, his calculating green eyes had a glint of…something close to mischief in them.

“Know what?” he asked, moseying back to her with one hand in his pocket and the other loosely grasping the flower. Her face felt all too warm all of a sudden.

“N-nothing! Just…just the outcome of the…the game,” she blurted out, fidgeting and playing with the strap of her bag. The flizzy feeling was back, the electricity buzzing in her very bones.

He tilted his head to the left, looking almost exactly like a curious cat, before the slightest grin twisted his face. “But you do know.”

Most people didn’t like his smiles. He would bare his teeth as though he were looking for a fight, seeming almost the opposite of cheerful. But witnessing him with something other than a frown on his face had always been a treat for her, and she found herself staring at him for a tad too long a time, absentmindedly blurting out a confused. “What?”

“There’s a singular petal. I suppose he loves you,” Stein said, tossing the flower at her and watching as she fumbled to catch it before he placed his free hand into his other pocket. 

Her breath caught in her throat, she felt like the sun was laughing at  _her_  all of a sudden.

But he was right, as far as the game went. She had ended on “he loves me not” and there was just one petal left.

As she looked from the flower back to him and then back at the flower, she noticed that his grin softened at the edges, looking less jagged and more amused.

She wondered how much he knew.

“I doubt it matters, however,” he said, shattering the almost magical moment. “It isn’t a reliable method of testing hypothetical emotions.” With an almost bored, lazy tone, he turned around, starting to make his way out of the forest and to the lab, and she almost tripped over her feet so she wasn’t left behind.

She puffed her cheeks up slightly, irritated that he would dismiss something that wasn’t all hard numbers and fact so easily. After all, she could turn into a hammer! Who said flowers were so unreliable?

Marie rolled her eyes once more, grumbling under her breath and stuffing all her flowers into her bag, yet she left the sunflower tucked under her arm. After everything was settled and she was following him at a decent pace, she readjusted her hold on the singular bloom so she could look at the last remaining petal.

Just as they were about to cross the threshold of the training forest, she grasped the petal between her fingers, closing her eyes.

Her voice was soft, barely a whisper when she said “He loves me,” plucking the last petal and letting it fly free in the barely there breeze. A shiver ran through her though it was warm, and, as silly as it seemed, she could swear she felt magic bubble up from the earth, trailing from her feet to the very top of her head.

And when she opened her eyes, she realized that Stein had looked over his shoulder to glance at her.

When their eyes locked and the remnants of the flower fell from her hands, she swore she felt electric. 


End file.
